In March I started studying, via distance education, a Graduate Certificate of Systems Development with Charles Sturt University. The Graduate Certificate is made up of 4 units which can count towards the full Masters course (which I plan on continuing with - I figured it would be safer to aim for something achievable first, and seeing if I still liked studying enough to commit a few years to it!) Charles Sturt University has a great reputation for its distance education, but the reason I signed up was that it works hand-in-hand with industry so you achieve the Masters and industry certification...

Recently my boss said something like: There are two types of developers - ones that are into their tools, and those that just use the tools. You don't need to be the first type to get the job done. With regards to most of the programs I use, I'm the first type (and proud of it). However there's some things I have no desire to get into, and would rather just use; DOS batch files, Oracle TNSNAMES.ORA configuration, HTML help authoring, to name a few. That one little quote also touched on a tendency that I have to spend too much time fiddling...

Steven Smith, ASP.NET ninja and tech blogger at stevesmithblog.com, writes in "Cool Games" about games he enjoys playing in his free time.Like Steve - and about a zillion other tech people in the world - I'm into good board games and definitely not averse to some XBox gaming.And probably like a lot of fellow geeks, I'm always on the lookout for good two-player games with a high Wife Acceptance Factor. Here's a couple of board games that my wife and I have enjoyed, as scored by my beautiful wife Olivia (thanks Wifey!):Stone Age: this one I bought Olivia for Christmas...

Louis over at lbrandy has a funny-yet-serious post on "Demotivating a (Good) Programmer" (found via Delicious popular links). Here's my favorite bit: Developers hate three things, above all else, in increasing order of painfulness… Working on stuff that is easyWorking on stuff that is tangentialWorking on stuff that no one will use These are the three deadliest of deadly sins in the development world. Especially number three. Nothing will suck the life out of programmer faster than working on something he is certain no one will ever use. I don't know about you, but I totally agree with number 3. I can still remember...

Via Delicious Popular Bookmarks, I found a great link to Star Wars-inspired art from design blog Abduzeedo. I loved Star Wars as a kid and my eldest son TJ has inherited the obsession (we even have to ask *not* to talk about Star Wars when we're playing games or discussing movies!) Tags: fun, starwars, art

SQL Bits is having a logo competition, and I entered the following:My goal was to feature the familiar (often yellow) database cylinder, with simple text. I don't expect to win, but given the prize (an XBox 360) I thought it would be worth a try :-)Links: http://www.sqlbits.com/LogoCompetition.aspxTags: sql bits, logo, contestBlogged with the Flock Browser